Endocrine Abstracts

Pituitary antibodies have been measured mainly to identify patients whose disease is caused or sustained by pituitary-specific autoimmunity. Although reported in over 100 publications, this antibody test has variable results and limited clinical utility. Our goals were to: identify major sources of variability; test them experimentally for establishing an optimized immunofluorescence protocol; assess prevalence and significance of pituitary antibodies in patients with pituitar...

GEP NETs, especially gastrinomas, occur in 40–70% of MEN1 patients and represent the main cause of death in these patients.We aim to investigate the efficacy of lanreotide autogel (ATG) in the treatment of MEN1-related gastrinomas.We report a monocentric series of seven MEN1 patients (three M, and four F) treated with lanreotide ATG (120 mg/4 weeks) for a mean period of 62.1 months. Plasma gastrin levels have been measured at ...

Background: Thermal ablation techniques are reported to significantly decrease thyroid nodule volume in several single-center short-term series. The present trial on ultrasound (US)-guided laser ablation (LAT) of solid thyroid nodules is addressed to assess long-term clinical efficacy, side-effects and variability of outcomes in different centers operating with the same LAT procedure.Patients: Two hundred and one consecutive patients were randomly assign...

Obesity is the single most significant risk factor for testosterone deficiency in men, with a reported prevalence up of 60% of male obesity secondary hypogonadism (MOSH). Several studies have shown that significant weight loss due to bariatric surgery have significant metabolic and endocrine improvement in obesity, however the results achieved with conventional diet and lifestyle change are poor and not able to reverse this condition. As an alternative to bariatric surgery, we...

Liver and visceral ectopic fatty tissue disposition is a major metabolic derangement leading to type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, recapitulated in the metabolic syndrome (MetS). We have demonstrated that the selective FXR agonist obeticholic acid (OCA, INT-747) ameliorates the metabolic profile and reduces visceral adipose tissue (VAT) in a high-fat diet (HFD)-induced rabbit model of MetS. We now report the effects of OCA treatment in HFD (0.5% cholesterol and 4% p...

Introduction: Pasireotide normalized or reduced UFC in patients with Cushing’s disease in a large, 12-month study. This analysis evaluates the effects of pasireotide on the signs/symptoms of Cushing’s disease according to the degree of UFC control.Methods: Adult patients (n=162) with persistent/recurrent or de novo Cushing’s disease were randomized to pasireotide 600/900 μg s.c. bid. Dose titration (max: 1200 μg...

Backgeound and Aims: Phaeochromocytomas (PCC) and paragangliomas (PGL) are mostly benign sympathoadrenal tumours. However, there are no available markers to predict a malignant course. Since hypoxia is involved in the pathogenesis of these tumours, we aimed to qualify the relevance of the mammalian Target of Rapamycin (m-TOR) and hypoxic pathways in benign and malignant PCC/PGL.Methods: Tissue microarray (TMA) blocks were constructed with 80 PCC/PGL, inc...

Background and Aims: Phaeochromocytoma and paragangliomas are neuroendocrine tumours arising from chromaffin cells. These tumours express somatostatin receptors (SSTRs), which has five different main subtypes (SSTR1, SSTR2, SSTR3, SSTR4 and SSTR5). The differential expression of the different receptor subtypes in these tumours has previously been reported with a small series of tumour samples. Our study examined the expression of SSTR subtypes in a larger series of benign and ...

Several pathological processes contribute to the development and progression of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), which is a disorder with high morbidity and mortality rates. However, although cardiac manifestations are common in hyperthyroidism (HT), they have been seldom described in association with HT. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate echocardiographic parameters in patients with Graves Disease (GD) during uncontrolled hyperthyroidism and after its re...

The optimal treatment of recurrent adrenocortical cancer (ACC) remains to be established since there are discrepant opinions on the value of repeat surgery. We did a retrospective analysis of the outcome of patients who were referred to our units from 1988 to 2006 for a recurrence of ACC, which occurred 2–83 years after radical removal of the tumor. In that period, the treatment policy of ACC recurrence differed among our units, since oncologists were more accustomed to u...